Next wave micro- and nanoelectronic devices are looking towards new materials capable of keeping up with Moore's law trends, while still allowing for integration with high-throughput fabrication processes.
One material of interest for future devices is graphene. Graphene is a single atomic layer of graphite that shows promising electronic properties, including high mobility, high saturation velocity, stable crystal structure, and ultrathin layer thickness. To be utilized in electronic and device applications, graphene must rest on an electronically semiconducting or insulating substrate.
Current methods of producing graphene involve either growing graphene on a transition metal substrate and then transferring a single graphene sheet onto an insulating substrate, or growing graphene by thermal evaporation of silicon from bulk SiC(0001) substrates.
However, in order to provide a direct route towards the formation of graphene-based field effect transistors and other devices fabricated with high-throughput, scalable methods are needed for producing graphene directly on insulating materials, including those insulating materials that are integrable with silicon.
Accordingly, there continues to be a need in the art for materials and techniques capable of achieving graphene-based devices.